Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1887-02-03
"WHAT THINK YE OF CHRISTI"
The Great Ones of the World Have Always
Acknowledged the Saviour as Their
True Inspiration.

True Inspiration.
The great heart of the world is just.
pnd, turning from the ignorant and
Jancorous men, who fight with poisoned
weapons of savages or slaves, l cry
across the ages to the mighty spirits of
the Christian centuries. ''What think
ye of Christi The poets, led by the
great Florentine, the man of sad. lone
spirit, of face So beautiful, yet so full of
wondrous thought, who imagined the
strange circles of the 'Inferno," and
vet saw as in open vision the celestial
''mount of light" while Chaucer, in
his quaint English guise. and Shake
speare, ''Fancy's sweet child" and Mil
ton, whose voice had sound of the
sea, and Cowper. and Coleridge. and
Wordsworth, and many another bright
spirit, follow in his train-make an
swer: 'He was the soul of our poetry.
our inspiration, and our Joy"
.'What think We of Christi" We ask
the men of thought. and out of the
middle ages rise the schOolmen. whose
mighty insellects made light in its dark
ness, the founders of modern philoso-
ply. Descartes. and Bacon, and Locke.
the foremost minds of the eighteenth
century. the century of unbelief, Leib-
nitz. and Newton, and Berkely. and
Kant; the thinkers. too. that in sheer
intellectual force transcend all the other
men of this century of conscious wis
dom. Schelling and Hegel. and they al
together confess and acknowledge 1.-The
Christ stands alone. pre-eminent. only
Son of God among men,"
What think We of Christi" we ask
great philanthropists. the men who
have made our laws kindlier while more
just to the criminal, our prisons more
wholesome while more deterrent of
crime. who have accomplished the lib
Grafton of the slave. who
have made us conscious of our
duties to savage peoples abroad
and to our lapsed at home; the men who
i'm these centuries have been foremost
in doing good and in guiding to noble
ness the mind of man; and Bernard.
and Francis of Assist. John Howard and
Mrs. Fry. WiIberforce and Livingstone.
surrounded bv the noble band of all
our good Samaritans, answer with one
accord: without Him we should have
been without our inspiration and our
strength. the love of man and the
hatred of wrong that have constrained
us to our work.
What think We of Christi" we cry to
the great masters of music and song.
who have woven for us the Divine
speech of the oratorio and filed the ear
with harmonies grander than any nat
ure has known. and they for answer
but bid us read the names of their SUI
preme works: Messiah" ''St. Paul. :"
Redemption" and know that but for
Christ the one art in which the modern
has far transcribed the ancient world
had never been.
'.What think We of Christi Ask
painters who have made the canvas live
with their ideals of love and holiness.
pity and suffering; the sculptors who
have chiseled the shapeless marble into
forms SO noble as to need only speech
to be the living man made perfect; and
their great leaders. from famed GiOttO
through Fra Angelica to Angelo and
Raphael. to Rembrandt and Rubens,
send forth the response: He has been
the soul of our art, our dream by
might. our joy by day; to paint Him
worthily were the highest though. alas,
most hopeless feat OF man." o yes;
Thou Christ the Reiecmer. Son of God
yet Son of man. stand forth in Thy
serene and glorious power. leader of
our progress. author of all our good.
ideal and inspiration of all our right
and righteousness. and reign over the
hearts and in the lives of men!-Prin-
ciDdt Fdirbdirn.